Brooklyn Bass merchant AC Slater is back in the UK for two shows with the Plump DJs to help celebrate the launch of their new label Grand Hotel. First up is Sankeys in Manchester on Friday 19th of November followed by Saturday at The Plug in Sheffield.

We have a pair of tickets to give away to the Manchester show as well as a copy of AC Slater’s Calm Down Trilogy EP to give away to the first person who can email us with the name of the TV show that the Trouble & Bass man got his name from. Answers to whosthecaptain@hotmail.com (put the answer in the subject heading and your name and address in the email).

We also have this hyper than hype promo mix crafted especially for Grand Hotel to give way, no answers needed for this one either.

“Darkhouse Family is the product of many smokey studio hours shared by Don Leisure & Metabeats… Linking up in late 2007 the duo gelled quickly over a shared musical heritage of hiphop and uk club culture and a loose beat tape project began to grow. This later turned into DHF after the old chopped up soul sample sound was replaced by a more synthed out, smoked out & synthetic sound that the group is known for… The Family Trees EP on Fat City Recordings put Darkhouse on the map with solid DJ support from Martyn, The Gaslamp Killer, Alex Nut, Illum Sphere, Kutmah, Dibiase & more.

This mix is just a collection of some new stuff we’ve been sent and are feeling and some of our latest beats also. One of the loose ideas of the mix was to showcase a bunch of new producers who are making dope tracks who may not be household names to everyone.

We are planning an LP in 2011 but will release some more material on Fat City hopefully this year and also undertake some remix work for Frite Nite and Jon Wayne. Don Leisure also has some solo project work on the bubble and Metabeats is set to release his 2nd LP on Associated Minds and also continues to shake skirts with his CRST project.”

Wiley just leaked another track called The Great Leak, talking about how great his leaked zip files were (certainly was a great number of em, there's a reason some tracks tend to stay on hard drives though and alot of artists need to realise this). Have to say I'm feeling the other two tunes he 'leaked' today though, including a track with Shola Ama produced by Wizzy Wow. Reminds me of that classic 90s R'n'B sound (yes that's a good thing, stop frontin').

All these latest twitter leaks are 160kbps so no good for the club though unfortunately, shame cos the instrumental track bangs like a Glitch Mob track.

Somebody retweeted it with my personal account in there but it had been deleted by the time I investigated and never heard from him... perhaps he took my Twitter name literally and thought he'd better leave it. Course it could be a coincidence, forget the Chrome bit and I'm certainly not the only Kaptin. It's also the nickname of South African MC Ben Sharpa who incidentally has just dropped this new video for his track Check The Evidence.

At the end of the tracks he name checks Jonzi D the UK Hip-hop legend who I'm going to see later on today... it's a funny old small and synchronistic world that we live in.

Kicked off the show this time with an exclusive from the Astroid Boys, definitely smashing it for the South Wales area right now, followed up by another native, Doc Daneeka and his ‘2 Step Militia’ remix of the new Warrior One single. Next up was Slaughterhouse Rydims getting a bit ravey and two groups playing at this week’s Swn Festival both together, with Dam Mantle remixing Cardiff 'no wave' group Islet. There’s also a relative newcomer to the Cardiff scene, a producer called STD who shall be making his first official live appearance with Mount Kimbie at CAI next Wednesday (unfortunately if you haven’t got a ticket for this, it’s already sold out). Sick Girls from Berlin give us a sneak preview of their new album for BBE, apparently the V in V Skank stands for Vagina… So now you know. The Mayor of Ibizan Clubland, Doorly kicks off his new label Pigeonhole This! with a selection of his own productions, including this one with Lady Chann. 15 year old Astroid Boys producer from Newport, Dellflips the already gigantic ‘What You Talking About’ into a humungous mutant swamp monster of a tune whilst Bassnectar & Ill Gates and Kraddy both come stomping in with some Hulk hop beasts. A-Trak shows that all that time in the House and Electro scenes has simply improved his Hip-hop side with a neck snapping track and had to drop something from Teebsalbum, it’s straight up beautiful. Roel Funcken, one half of Dutch crew Funckarma, has just released his new EP on Eat Concrete and it's incredible, as is the new Lazer Sword album from which we played Batman (since found it onThe Faderso you can grab it below) and we topped it off with the new Numbers release fromTaz and a track called Robogrime whch pretty much speaks for itself... see you next week!

I grew up listening to Rodigan clash tapes and I love the way, despite the Reggae industry having taken something of a beating the last few years, he's still embraced by today's club generation. As always, an incredible line up for FabricLive, here's a little video introduction to it from Toddla T, who I'm starting to think may have been made by Aardman Studios.

So many tunes, so little time. Was going to put these up yesterday as a tribute to Remix Sunday from the Palm's Out blog which I have sorely missed, until I realised 2 things. One - Remix Sunday is alive and well and in no need of a tribute and Two - it was Monday and I was a day late. Luckily most of these guys should need little to no introduction to our regulars so let's not waste time talking, get downloading!

Metabeats and Dubbledge combine on the 'The Making Of A Slave' in honour of Black History Month. Inspired by the Willie Lynch letter, ‘The Making of a Slave’ sees Dubbledge at his most controversial, ironically morphing into the shoes of a slave owner to breakdown the various techniques used to create slaves. However he does so with an intellectual, tongue in cheek delivery and enough humour to turn the ugliest of subjects into an inspirational look at the methods used to create an inbuilt self-destructive mentality that will & has spanned generations. It's thought provoking & definitely worth a listen for some true edutainment.

Due to my involvement with Cardiff Arts Institute, I probably bang on about it more than you readers from the rest of the world are bothered about. However just as the blog is an extension of my excitement over the wealth of incredible music out there at the moment, so is the CAI a labour of love that gets me pretty damn excited so it shall probably crop up quite a bit (hopefully) for some time still. Also, don't be too quick to disregard these posts, I intend for the venue to be an upto date marker in music as well (not always an easy task in this fair city of ours) so anyone you see playing there, should definitely be in your radar. With this in mind, here's a few of the acts that shall be appearing over the rest of this month.

Most of you will already know Tomb Crew, however you may not already know Ital Lion or Exotope who shall both be appearing on this night.

Ital Lion is one of the founding fathers of the Welsh Dubstep scene, having first made his way through the Jungle, Garage and Grime scenes first before reaching a unique, almost tribal sound that has always had more than a passing respect for the Dub part of the genre's moniker. This particular track has had alot of play from me recently (sorry no d/l on this as he's still negotiating a release for it).

I only recently met Exotope but had already enjoyed his beat for the Astroid Boys tune Party & Bullshit (which was also released on his Juvenile Scum label). His Dubstep outings are straight dutty stinkers for the filth generation but still maintain a fun element. No doubt all these factors have since triplicated since he became the tour DJ for the Dirty Sanchez boys.

Swn Festival is a fantastic multi venue weekend event here in the city curated by John Rostron and BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens. For a full line up check their site, it's not an instantly obvious line up but that's what makes it so great, as it's stacked full of new and exciting acts to discover. We shall be hosting the launch party on Monday but also a few different events over the weekend. Here's a couple of acts playing here that I'm particularly looking forwards to.

Seams (Monday 18th October)

A late addition to the already exciting prospect of Toro Y Moi, Seams caught my ear through his remixes for Gold Panda and Bibio but his solo productions don't disappoint either. This latest offering is inspired by the Brummie producer's time in Berlin and amidst the shuffling, atmospheric Four Tetesque Techno is 'field' recordings made using his phone or an old tape recorder.

Okay so the prospect of yet another Indie / Electro / Disco act hasn't instantly got me moist but Shake Aletti are definitely near the top of the new crop and this remix from their fellow Sheffield musical exponent Toddla T helps as well.

Nedryare one of many bands to have been likened to The xx, but that's just lazy. They're actually like a Portishead for the modern generation. S**t, okay that was even more lazy. Either way they combine dreamy ethereal vocals with deep up to date electronic beats that waver somewhere in the Dubstep region... and they do it very well.

The guys from the Electroneg label celebrate the release of a new compilation with their first live outing including: Cian Ciaran from Super Furry Animals and Acid Casuals; Plyci; Quinoline Yellow; and an incredible new producer calledDam Mantle, from that bastion of Avante-Bass, Glasgow. His Purple Arrow EP has been gaining some heavy rotation from us recently and although the whole line up is strong it's these latter two that I'm most looking forwards to.

The Friday fun doesn't stop with Swn however. Once they close up shop at Midnight, the guys from One Mission (the University D'n'B + Dubstep society) shall be taking over the proceedings for the rest of the evening and have got our good friend Stagga flying in from Berlin for a long awaited set back on home turf. Very much looking forwards to this one.

Although Crooks & Lovers has been on heavy rotation, I'm yet to join the masses of people I've met recently who can say "Oh my God did you Mount Kimbie at (insert Festival here), they were amazing." I figured it was time to put this right and bring them some place where I can't fail to catch them.

Joining them on the night shall be a long term Chrome Kids favourite in the shape of Zwolf and a relative newcomer to our radar by the name of STD.

That's right, we have spotted this rare and beautiful creature outside of it's limited digital enclosure. You can now find it in all fine record stores,reputable download retailers and from the Ghostly International store on CD/LP/Digital. We suggest you hunt it down.

"Baggy Spandex came about by a complete chance encounter on a dark street in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood on the way home from a night out. Kotchy was walking along and finding a box of old albums on the sidewalk decided to have a look. As he was checking out the wax the front door opened and out walked Janine from Ghostbusters (the Secretary and Rick Moranis’ Girlfriend) wearing a very confounding pair of baggy spandex shorts. It was decided then that Kotchy would go straight home, taking the albums with him and make an album comprised entirely of samples from this collection. It’s dedicated to Janine and it’s called Baggy Spandex!"

Next month, Brooklyn based Glitch hop producer Shigeto follows up his two EPs on Ghostly International(Semi Circle & What We Held On To) with his first full length album, Full Circle. Expect a mature, musically minded and atmospheric affair, in keeping with the rest of the label's output (fast approaching 10 Year's worth now). For a taster check out this little beauty from the album.

We've told you before about the Astroid Boys and their new single Jungle Booku, well the 'B Side' to that is a track called Party & Bulls**t, produced by Exotope out of Telegram From The Queen, also head of Juvenile Scum records who released the single (got a few of his tracks to post up soon so keep an eye out for them). Here's a video for the track which was filmed at the launch of the single at Cardiff Arts Institute last Friday. Gives you a little insight into how crazy their shows get.

The boys will be returning to CAI on Friday 22nd October alongside Stagga who is making a trip to play back home for the first time in a while. Our Chrome compadre has just signed up a few tracks to Starkey's Slit Jockey label. Genik Riddim is due out next month on digital release with remixes from CRST and Starkey, whilst Wild For The Night and Be The Generals are planned as a vinyl / digital single later in the year. Caught Gaslamp Killer dropping Wild For The Night on the Arcadia rig at Bestival, place went off!

MP3 Disclaimer

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